It’s FA Cup 5th round action today as we get ready to face Middlesbrough, slayers of the hubristic Man City in the last round.
They arrive full of confidence as they sit top of the Championship, and in great form too. They’re unbeaten in 10 games, scoring 17 goals and conceding just 3. Considering the problems we had with bottom of the table Leicester on Tuesday night we’re going to have to smarten up today. It’s unlikely to be the walk in the park many expected when the draw was made.
There’s always something a bit dangerous playing against a team with nothing to lose. They’re clearly underdogs and as such that takes most of the pressure on them. The fact that they also have a much bigger cake on the horizon makes this game, potentially, a cherry-on-top kind of fixture. Win and it adds to their belief as they look to secure promotion to the Premier League; lose and they simply have that to concentrate on knowing that they’ve at least beaten City on the way.
We know there are going to be some changes with the manager saying some players who haven’t played recently will get a chance. I’m assuming that means Kieran Gibbs at left back but Hector Bellerin should continue on the other side. Calum Chambers hasn’t been involved in the last two squads for some reason, and I suspect the manager might use today to give Gabriel a debut, so he might want to preserve some consistency in the back four.
Especially as we already know there’ll be a change of goalkeeper. It’s a chance for Wojciech Szczesny to remind Arsene Wenger of his qualities after weeks of playing second fiddle to David Ospina. I thought he was rather unfairly criticised for the goals we conceded against Brighton in the last round, which were far more down to bad defending than goalkeeping, but to my mind Ospina hasn’t convincingly made the number 1 spot his own, and even Arsene Wenger says “the competition is open” between the two.
That suggests he’s not yet fully convinced by the Colombian either, but perhaps more than that he wants to foster a genuinely competitive environment for his keepers. My gut feeling is that he prefers Szczesny overall, but rightly punished him for his behavioural indiscretions. The form that last season’s Golden Glove winner was in made it easier for him to do that.
If Szczesny had been playing out of his skin he could have sparked up a Cuban Cigar, poured himself a large brandy and used Steve Bould as a chair, and he’d have kept his place in the team. But his lack of form – a lot of which I believe had to do with playing behind a different, unsettled back four in almost every game – meant the boss could bin him. Now we have to see if he’ll respond and today is a chance for him to do that.
Injuries mean we don’t have a wide range of midfield options. Aaron Ramsey and Mikel Arteta are out, Flamini could come back in for, or alongside, Coquelin. The latter might be overly cautious but I’m not 100% convinced you can use Rosicky and Cazorla in the same midfield when they’re both deployed centrally.
Up front there’s plenty to choose from. Welbeck, Giroud, Walcott and Ozil give the manager a three into four situation, and even Chuba Akpom might fancy his chances of getting in on the action at some point today. I wonder if Ozil might get a rest having done 90 minutes in our last three games and 80 in his comeback game against Brighton. It’s a difficult one because he’s got three goals in those four games but it might be sensible if he’s feeling the effects of that (information we don’t have, of course).
After a good January overall, most especially in terms of our performances, there have been elements of carelessness creeping back into our game. We saw it at Brighton, conceding twice; in the North London derby when lack of defensive awareness and concentration cost us the game; and against Leicester on Tuesday when we found it difficult at times to cope with the powderpuff threat threat of the league’s bottom side.
Today would be a good day to be a little more convincing, but against a Boro side that will make it hard work for us, and who’ll be well and truly up for this, we’re going to have to work very hard to make that happen.
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We’ll have full live blog coverage of the game for you later on. Simply check back later for a post with all the details or bookmark the default live blog page and updates will begin automatically.
Until then, have a good Sunday.
